JANET SUZMAN, 67, ACTRESS
Janet Suzman seemed destined for Hollywood greatness after the film Nicholas
and Alexandra, for which she was Oscar nominated in 1971. But after the
birth of her son Josh she made fewer films, returning to the stage and
taking up writing and directing to allow her to spend more time with Josh.
Twenty-five years on, she’s at the RSC playing Volumnia in Coriolanus,
Shakespeare’s famous, and controversial, mother role.
“Creativity is a funny thing: it needs as much attention as a baby does. To
inhabit a role you need to leave all your troubles — the shopping bags of
life — at the rehearsal room door. And yet we mothers come trailing clouds
of responsibility and worry. Creative concentration requires a brain
untrammelled by daily niggles, and children are all about niggling details!
“For me, becoming a mother was this cataclysmic life event: irrevocable and
sudden. My son arrived five weeks early and I wasn’t prepared: I found
handling that and my career incredibly difficult. When he was a baby I
tucked Joshie under my arm and took him on location with me. He played in a
playpen on the side of film sets, slept beneath restaurant tables or was
cared for by a nanny back in the hotel room.
“Once when I was filming in India, the heat got too much for him and he had to
return to England. I missed him so desperately I vowed to give up location
work after that. I took on roles in theatres near my Hampstead home, and
Josh went to nursery while I rehearsed. I always tried to rush back at
lunchtimes to check on him, but in the evenings I had to leave him again to
get ready for a performance so I missed bath and bedtime, such a precious
time with a child.
“Through that period I always had this split focus. The only time I was really
relaxed was working on Othello, in South Africa, when my mother was
caring for Josh. For the first and only time since becoming a mother I was
totally relaxed and able to go into the rehearsal room with an untrammelled
spirit and, as a result, I produced what I consider to be my best work.”
Turning to directing and writing was a conscious decision for Suzman. She
wrote The Free State, an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, set
in her native South Africa, and has directed celebrated productions of Othello
and Hamlet. “It allowed me to be there at bath and bedtime,” she
explains, simply. “In the end it was Josh’s life or my life and I weighed up
what was important. A small child is so vulnerable and as a mother you are
everything to them, all that stands between them and perdition.”
Suzman talks about her return to the RSC, where she will perform alongside
Timothy West and William Houston in Coriolanus, as Volumnia, a role
some believe to be based on Shakespeare’s mother.
“Of course you draw on what you are for a part. Motherhood feeds into you,
becomes part of your cell structure but the fun of acting is finding the
truth in someone who is not like you at all. If I spoke to my son as
Volumnia speaks to Coriolanus he’d probably laugh at me!
“You give all you can to motherhood and still you end up regretting the times
you weren’t there. In the end you judge yourself not on how you have
survived but on how your child came through and my son is a wonderful,
wonderful person. That makes me more proud than any award or rave review I
have ever received.”
Coriolanus, starring Janet Suzman, is at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre,
Stratford, until the end of March. For tickets call the RSC ticket hotline
0870 6091110; www.rsc.org.uk
RACHEL SEIFFERT, 36, NOVELIST
Afterwards, by Rachel Seiffert, is the follow-up to The Dark Room,
shortlisted for the Booker Prize six years ago. Afterwards was written over
two pregnancies, while Seiffert’s babies were napping.
I met Seiffert at a postnatal group in South London in 2003. I remember her
saying that she struggled to sleep because she was frightened that if she
did, something might happen to her son. Her comment tapped into the
unconscious maternal terror felt by us all and rendered a room of mums
momentarily silent. Which is Seiffert’s talent as a writer: she startles you
by presenting unacknowledged truths of human experience, raising niggling
questions that remain with you.
At her South London home our toddlers bonded over the movie Cars while
we discussed balancing babies and books.
“I find the most productive time is that which is carved out of life,” she
says. “After writing The Dark Room I had all this time to write
but nothing to write about; the pressure to fill that empty time became
quite daunting. I started writing short stories while I searched for a
subject for a new novel.” These were published in a collection Field
Study, in 2004.
“I started on Afterwards when I was pregnant with my first child,
Finlay, and having that deadline made me suddenly very prolific.”
Seiffert didn’t pick up a pen again until Finlay was 12 months old, when he
started going to a childminder in the mornings. “I’d get a couple of hours
writing done, then pick Finlay up, give him lunch, put him down for a nap
and write for another hour or so while he slept.
“Motherhood really restored the balance for me,” she says. “Writing time
became more precious and I spent a great deal less of it staring out of the
window. I’ve heard it said that women find it hard to justify allowing their
creativity to fill their working lives; artistic endeavour has to be
something we do ‘on the side’. I think there’s some truth in that.”
Afterwards is about two ex-servicemen: Joseph, who served in Northern
Ireland and refuses to speak about his experiences, and David, his
girlfriend’s grandfather who fought in Kenya in the 1950s. It seems an
unlikely topic for a new mother to light on.
“I travelled all over the world publicising The Dark Room,”
Rachel says. “Every country seemed to have some skeleton in the national
cupboard. I started wondering about British skeletons. I interviewed members
of the British Forces and the thing that came up over and over again was how
difficult it was, particularly for those involved in politically contentious
conflicts, to talk about their experiences.
“I wanted to write a novel that explored how much we are ever allowed to know
about the person we love, and how much people need to keep secret. All my
work is about family and my own family circumstances steer my work. But I’ve
chosen not to write about my experiences of early motherhood because I hope
my children will read my books and I wouldn’t want it to be uncomfortable
for them.”
Afterwards (William Heinemann, £14.99)
Catherine Bruton is the author of Of Silence and Slow Time (Robert
Hale, £17.99)
DAME ANTOINETTE SIBLEY, 68, DANCER
Dame Antoinette Sibley was one of the leading dancers of her generation.
She became a mother at 37 and continued dancing for three more years before
retiring in 1978. Two years later, after the birth of her second child, she
returned to the stage, finally retiring at 50.
“Motherhood came to me late in life. It was something I had never thought
would happen so I was thrilled more than I can say. Nowadays, many
ballerinas continue dancing right up till the day they give birth, but I
didn’t dance a step during either of my pregnancies and yet I felt better
than I had in my whole life. I enjoyed feeling like a normal woman: our
profession is so all-consuming, mentally and physically, and pregnancy took
me out of that. I suddenly felt part of the human race.
“After my daughter was born, I found it heartbreaking leaving her with the
nanny and going off to rehearse. I don’t know how I got through that
time; how any woman does. It was easier after my son was born because the
children always had each other. On Saturdays they would take it in turns to
accompany me to class. They would play with Lego under the piano and watch
me train.
“I never expected to come back to dancing after my second pregnancy. I retired
before my son was born, suffering with a recurrent knee injury and I planned
to stay at home with my children. But I was asked by Anthony Dowell, my
long-time ballet partner, to dance with him for a one-off in a gala and I
found my knee no longer troubled me. I ended up dancing for the next ten
years.
“After having the children I felt calmer when I danced, not so chewed up all
the time. I felt so fulfilled and full of utter joy and I was able to
project that on to the stage. I also felt a strange sense of renewed
youthfulness as I saw the world anew through my children’s eyes, and that
translated itself into my performances. I revelled in the wonderment of
being a mother, but I also had this magic other side of my life. Once you
are in the dressing room you are no longer a mother, you become another
creation, the character you are to be on stage. I loved being a different
person all the time. Now I am retired and the children grown up, I miss
those other identities; now I am stuck with being me.”
Hormonal helpers
According to scientists at the University of Richmond, Virginia, hormones
released during pregnancy change the shape and structure of women’s brains,
and these changes last into old age.
These brain-boosting hormones beef up the hippocampus, the centre of learning
and memory; hence both of these functions are boosted in mums.
The researchers think this change originally made new mothers good at foraging
and thinking their way out of problems. Now it helps mums to think laterally
and can boost their creativity.
The Richmond University scientists also believe that having babies when you’re
older keeps your brain healthier, as this counteracts middle-aged decline.
New Zealand researchers believe that breast-feeding boosts the amount of
stress-busting hormone in the brain. The long-term effect means that mums
are more self-confident.
